


Selection of Shorts

by amitai (xaritomene)



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Courtship, Failboats In Love, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Illnesses, M/M, Sweet, Wooing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-02-23
Updated: 2012-02-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 15:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/345633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xaritomene/pseuds/amitai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Selection of short Alex/Wolf stories, all of them stand-alones. So far, 'TLC ("Tough Love Cure")' and 'Crazy Love'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. TLC (The Tough Love Cure)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alex is a terrible patient, and Wolf is a worse nurse, but somehow, they get through it. Just like always.

Alex was excellent with pain. He could – and had – defeated enemies of the state at fourteen years old whilst recovering from a bullet which narrowly missed his heart. He had run on a broken ankle and stayed operative through more concussions than was strictly healthy.

And he was still a terrible, terrible patient. 

Wolf was sure that if it was really life-threatening, Alex would clam up and go all stoic on him, but it was just a nasty case of flu which Lemsip and lots of fluids would see him through – nothing terrible or even really worrying. And _because_ Alex had run on a broken leg and fought concussions and ignored recovery times, he clearly had no idea why he should allow a little thing like flu to slow him down.

Wolf disagreed. Thankfully, so did Alex’s superiors at MI6, and Alex had been taken off the active duty roster ‘until they could be sure he wouldn’t give himself away with an ill-timed sneeze’. It might not be flowers and a Get Well Soon card, but Wolf knew Alex’s employers well enough to understand that it might as well be. Anyway, Alex was their best operative, they had a vested interest in making sure he survived to work his way up the chain of command, or whatever the MI6 equivalent was.

Wolf neither knew nor cared what MI6’s motivations were. What he cared about was making sure Alex got better, no matter how difficult Alex himself might be making things.

“Hey,” he said carefully, perching on the bed next to Alex. “Time for your next dose of Lemsip.” 

Alex would clearly have liked to have pouted, but manfully forbore to do so. “Fine,” he sighed. “And then tea, right? I hate the taste of that stuff.”

“Yeah, then tea,” Wolf nodded. He was generally a pretty terrible nursemaid, but he knew Alex like no one else, and could make up for his other deficiencies by being able to read every shift and expression and half-finished sentence. And, of course, Alex had been down with this bug for the past four days; Lemsip was followed by tea, always. Also: “d’you want your hot-water bottle refilled?”

“No,” Alex really was all but pouting now. “I’m too hot for a bloody hot water bottle.”

Wolf took a deep breath and didn’t snap back at him. “OK then.” When Alex was better, the pair of them were going to go to the first gym which rented out private exercise, and Wolf was going to do his level best to beat the shit out of the bastard, but until then, he was going to have to grin and bear Alex’s pouting fits. The man was twenty seven, for pity’s sake, and MI6’s top spy to boot, but apparently flu was his arch-nemesis. 

Wolf shook off thoughts of vengeance and stood. “I’ll be back in a minute,” he said, and glanced at the wreck which had once been their bed. “And I’ll bring a bin.” Years of military discipline made his fingers itch to tidy the hell out of the place. 

Alex was watching him with an expression that Wolf recognised as ‘contrite-come-mulish’. It was the same one Alex brought out whenever they had an argument where Wolf was right, but Alex couldn’t concede the point. “I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly, when Wolf raised an eyebrow at him. “I know I’m a bad patient.”

“Believe me, ‘bad’ doesn’t even begin to cover it,” Wolf assured him, and Alex cracked an unwilling smile. “But I signed up for better or worse, and I’m no shirker.”

“You’re ‘better’, I’m ‘worse’?” Alex guessed, and Wolf grinned, watching him reach for a tissue with something like fondness. He had fallen so bloody hard for this kid, if even watching him blow his nose could make him go all mushy.

“Something like that,” he said, after the pause dragged on just a fraction too long, and Alex was beginning to look a little questioning. “I’ll bring your Lemsip up, OK?”

“I really do hate that stuff,” Alex sighed, too poorly to really argue the point. 

“I know you do,” Wolf nodded. He considered telling Alex that it would make him feel better, that it would help – but he knew Alex already knew all these things. “That’s why I keep feeding it to you.”

“Sadist,” Alex shot back with a wan smile. Leaning back against the pillows, nose bright red from blowing it, hair unbrushed and unwashed, skin waxy, he was still the best thing Wolf had seen for a while.

“Yeah,” he agreed, and leant forwards to kiss Alex on the forehead. “That, and I want you better.” It was maybe as near as he’d ever really get to ‘I love you’.

Alex pushed him back, smiling. “Don’t, you’ll get my germs.”

“Rubbish,” Wolf told him, and finally left to go and boil the kettle for tea and medicine. When he got back, Alex was still smiling.

**

(Wolf, it turned out, was an even worse patient than Alex.)


	2. Crazy Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wolf intended his courtship to be sweet and traditional. Unfortunately, he's never really been good at either.

"These're for you," Wolf shoved the flowers into Alex's hand, and Alex looked down at them for a long moment.

"You got me – roses," he said slowly.

"Yes." Wolf shifted.

"...I don't understand, are they poisoned?"

“Of course they’re not poisoned!” Wolf snapped. “And if you don’t want them-”

“I never said I didn’t _want_ them,” Alex said, but Wolf could see the grin starting. “I’m just – surprised. And touched. Deeply, deeply touched by your thoughtful gesture. How did you know that roses are my favourites?”

Wolf knew when he was being mocked, however friendly that mocking was. “You’re laughing at me,” he accused, and Alex grinned.

“A little,” he admitted. “Sorry. Just – what possessed you to buy me roses?”

“Well,” Wolf called on years of SAS training not to shift awkwardly. “I just – you said your house could use some colour, so I thought-”

“You _remembered_ that?” Alex looked shocked.

“Why wouldn’t I remember that?”

“We were crawling through an art gallery in fucking Monaco trying not to get shot by terrorists, is why you wouldn’t remember that!”

Wolf disregarded this vagary. “Anyway, I couldn’t exactly nab you one of the pieces of artwork, so I thought flowers might do it.”

Alex stared down at the flowers, then back up at Wolf. “Let me get this straight,” he said carefully. “I mentioned my house didn’t have enough decorations – whilst we were being _shot_ at, might I just add – and you thought that you’d buy me flowers to cheer the place up.”

“Look, really, if you don’t want them, all you have to do is-”

“No, no – it’s...” Alex trailed off on seeing Wolf’s narrowed eyes. If the next word had been ‘sweet’, Alex would have found out exactly how ‘unsweet’ Wolf was currently feeling. Luckily, Alex had spent the past ten years being trained by MI6 to pick up these non-verbal clues. “Kind. It’s kind of you.”

He really did shift a little at that. “Yeah, well. What’s a few flowers between friends, right?” One of the petals drifted to the floor, and Wolf followed its progress for a second before glancing up at Alex. “You should probably get them into some water pretty soon. I – may have sat on them a little.”

**

“So, the chocolates are totally to make sure I get stuck in the next air vent I have to go into, right?” Alex asked, perched quite casually on Wolf’s windowsill. Wolf, who had a gun trained straight at Alex’s head, sighed and flicked the safety back on. 

“Jesus, Cub,” he sighed. “Would it have killed you to knock on the door like a normal person?”

“Quicker this way,” Alex shrugged. “And don’t change the subject. You had _chocolates_ delivered to me. _At work_.” 

“They’re your favourites, right?”

Alex paused. “I’m going to pretend like it doesn’t worry me that you remember stuff like this,” he said magnanimously.

“But they are, aren’t they?” Wolf turned and stumbled into the kitchen, leaving it up to Alex to follow him.

“Well, they were,” Alex agreed. “Until they were taken away and destroyed in a controlled explosion for being a potential ‘device’.” Wolf flicked the kettle on and turned dismayed eyes on Alex.

“All of them?”

“All of the ones Smithers didn’t take to test for venoms and poisons,” Alex said. “Maybe stick to Thornton’s home delivery service next time?” Wolf dragged a hand down his face and sighed. “Why did you send me chocolates, anyway?”

Wolf turned back to the kettle. “Heard about your assignment in Paris through the grapevine. Sounded like a tough one.”

“And you thought I might want to eat my feelings about it?”

“No – I just – yes. I thought maybe you’d like the distraction of chocolate. It releases endorphins which can raise your mood, if eaten in the right amount. The stuff you like has a high cocoa content and comes in good sized bites which would have been perfect. And healthy. And a mood-raiser.”

Alex considered this. “I know all that. Still sounds a lot like eating my feelings to me,” he said. Wolf shrugged and after a pause, Alex asked curiously, “Do _you_ eat your feelings?” 

“No, I mostly bury them and pretend they don’t exist,” Wolf deadpanned. 

Alex stole Wolf’s tea and took an obnoxious slurp of it. “I can see that about you,” he said with a smile. Wolf only just managed to return it. “Anyway, thank you for the chocolates. I’m sure they would have been lovely.”

“Don’t mention it.”

**

“Um, thank you,” Alex said carefully. “But, er, this looks like a really nice bottle of wine.”

It was a really nice bottle of wine; Wolf had deliberated over it for a long time. “I figured it would be a nice bottle for you to share with someone,” he said carefully. “And since we’re supposed to limit the amount we drink, it’s best to drink something really good when you do.”

“Yeah…” Alex nodded, and set the bottle down on his hall table. Wolf was still on the doorstep, hoping Alex would invite him in. “Look, I’m not really sure I have anyone I can share it with, so I don’t know-”

“You could share it with me,” Wolf blurted out, and then froze.

Something in Alex’s posture softened a little. “Oh yeah?” he grinned, and lent against the doorframe, before straightening up sharply. “Hang on, have you been _courting me_?”

Wolf eyed him. “You didn’t know?”

“If I’d known, I would have given you a straight answer right off the bat!” Alex said, looking strangely upset for a superspy.

Wolf’s insides went cold. “Oh?”

“Wolf – James – I’ve had a crush on you since before I was _legal_ ,” Alex told him firmly, in a voice which very strongly implied that Wolf was an idiot.

“I’m… not sure I’m comfortable with that information, but OK,” Wolf nodded, trying very hard not to do a happy dance. His pride would never recover if he did. 

“Come in, you idiot,” Alex told him, another grin starting to spread across his face. “Since we’ve apparently been courting for the past three months-”

“Those were the only times we both had downtime!”

“-I think we can skip dinner-and-a-movie.”

**

Lying in Alex’s bed after some truly amazing sex, Wolf opened up a little. “I’m kind of surprised you didn’t realise what I was doing from the get-go.”

“In my defence,” Alex said, worming even closer, “you were pretty fucking subtle about the whole thing.”

“But you’re a _spy_.”

“I also wasn’t expecting to be romanced by the guy who called Valentine’s Day a load of ‘claptrapped nonsense for the credulous emotion-ridden fool’.”

“But I gave you _roses_!” 

“And you told me they were for interior decorating, after I complained my house was ‘colourless’!”

“Eagle talks about what he wants to do for his kid’s nursery twenty-four-fucking-seven, but I’m not giving him design advice, am I?”

“I don’t know, are you? I can’t hear all of your conversations, Wolf.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“You’re an idiot.” Wolf could feel Alex’s smile against his skin. “You’re lucky I have a high tolerance for idiots.” They lay there in contented silence for a few minutes before Alex spoke up again. “Just – no more flowers, OK?”


End file.
